


the city of dust

by nekrateholic



Category: Monsta X (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, brief onscreen violence, partly the resistance: rise of the runaways au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 10:30:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10384686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekrateholic/pseuds/nekrateholic
Summary: “Did it work?” Minghao asked, a mad grin on his face.“Yeah,” Hansol said, but he couldn’t bring himself to return the smile. “Yeah, it did.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kpopolymfics2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2017) collection. 



> This fic was written for K-Pop Olymfics 2017. Olymfics is a challenge in which participants write fics based on prompt sets and compete against other teams of writers, organized by genre.
> 
> This is Team AU’s fic for the following prompt set:  
>  **Monsta X – "All In"**  
> [lyrics](https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2016/05/monsta-x-all-in-georeo) | [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNxPGbk-gwA) | [supplementary](http://rjkoehler.tumblr.com/post/152856895413/a-cold-rain-falls-on-seoul-stations-bus-transfer) [prompts](https://65.media.tumblr.com/0e2f620f654eca791f3949d8ff2cd951/tumblr_ohacnvx5H81vicd9po1_540.jpg)
> 
> The other 2 fics for this prompt can be found in [the collection](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2017).

 

_To Hyungwon_

_Happy birthday! I hope you enjoy this as much as you enjoyed the rest of my library. Be careful._

_Grandma_

Hansol ran his hand down the dusty page and wondered if the book was emotionally charged enough to create a memory. He hoped it was - he loved seeing stories, and what better story than a random inscription in a random book in the library. Who was Hyungwon? Who was grandma? What happened to them? What…

Hansol closed his eyes and let himself be pulled by the memory.

*

The first thing Hansol noticed was dust - the streets, the buildings, the people - everything was covered by dust. He saw the book immediately - it glowed a little brighter, as trigger items usually did. It was in the hands of a young boy - he clutched it in his hands, hurrying in some direction. Hansol followed him, the book’s glow growing a bit brighter with each step that brought him and the boy closer. He crossed a street and all but ran down the sidewalk, mindless of the clouds of dust his footsteps created.

Hansol felt it right before it happened. The exact reason why this book was this important to this person. Important enough for the memory to attach itself strong enough that people like Hansol could experience it too, who knows how many years later.

It was another boy and Hansol hoped against hope that it wasn’t another love sob story. The new boy stood up on the hood of a car, yelling something about how the fire was rising, how people should wipe the dust off their bodies and the ash from their eyes. He yelled, waving something blue – a flower? He yelled about flags and how the time had come and that the time to act was now. Another boy jumped on the car then, joining in, then taking the lead, words just as passionate as the first one’s.

Said first one got down and finally noticed the person with the book – it seemed like the whole world stopped for a moment – it was a lover after all. He turned his head towards memory’s owner and... smiled, a huge smile, full of every positive emotion Hansol had ever witnessed. It made the furious expression he’d had when doing his speech earlier seem like a distant dream. He raised a lighter towards the boy with the book, like a toast.

The boy didn’t smile back, though. Instead, his eyes widened and - he ran.

*

The familiar smell of library dust met him back in the present, and it took a second to realize that it was a different type of dust. That he was back.

“How was it?” Inquired a voice from behind him and Hansol jumped in surprise. Then Minghao was grinning in that annoying way he did when he knew he’d pissed Hansol off.

“Could you maybe try to not scare the shit out of me?”

“Nope,” Minghao said cheerily. “It’s so fun, too!” He took the book from Hansol’s hands then, and turned in his hands. Hansol almost expected him to fall into the memory as well, it was so strong - but of course, he didn’t. Minghao’s specialty was something else entirely. Which –

“Hey, do you think you can maybe help me?”

“Hm?” Minghao didn’t look up, still absently flipping through the book.

“I want to find other trigger items, related to this one.”

That made Minghao look up. “Really? Was the memory that interesting?”

“Not really,” Hansol sighed, “What I saw seemed like a typical love story, to be honest. I kind of still want to follow it – it’s a feeling, you know.”

Minghao just looked at him for a second, then nodded. “I’ll see if there is something else here, in the library.”

Hansol smiled at him and settled back into his chair, taking the book back in his hands. It didn’t pull him into the memory again but that was to be expected – once triggered, trigger items rarely pulled a person into the same memory a second time. He leafed through it again – it was a children’s book, one Hansol had never seen before and, honestly, he didn’t find it all that intriguing. He wondered if he just sent Minghao on the hunt for a story as dull as the book was.

Very soon Minghao returned with two more books, both obviously old and almost as dusty as the streets in the memory had been.

“I guess your person was quite the reader,” Minghao grinned.

Hansol shrugged, then – “Minghao, both these books are from The Fallout era.”

“Oh?” Minghao took them back, turned them over. “I guess they are. Didn’t you notice in the first memory?”

“I – I don’t know. There was so much dust everywhere.” There was also… “Wait, Minghao, do you have a lighter?”

“A lighter? I think I might have one somewhere, I keep accidentally stealing my dad’s somehow.”

Hansol took the lighter out of Minghao’s hands the second he found it, didn’t even wait for him to offer it. Minghao was probably about to say something about it, but he quickly closed his mouth when he saw Hansol bringing the lighter to the trigger book.

“Hansol, please don’t burn the poor book. It couldn’t have been _that_ bad.”

“Shut up.”

Hansol held the lighter close to the page with the inscription – carefully, because he didn’t want to burn it, thank you very much.

And sure – a few seconds later, a word showed up on top of the ones already written. It was _Freedom_.

“Oh, invisible ink. A love story in the Fallout era? This is going to be like history lessons, only cooler. I hope.” Minghao said, giving the books back. “Will you tell me about it after?”

“Of course I will, I always do.”

Minghao blew him a kiss and, “I’m going to go do some oldschool research now, happy memory jumping.”

“Thanks.” Hansol said, but he was already focused on the books in his hands. Touching the first one did nothing – it triggered nothing, and he opened it. It looked just as old as it did on the outside. He turned the pages – it was the usual Fallout bullshit – the new order, saving the race, stripping people of their identity – it made Hansol’s stomach turn. Then, on the last page, there was something – a poem – scribbled in faded blue ink.

  
_When the days had grown shortest, and the leaves all died._  
_When life became scarce and all was covered in ice._  
_There lived a pack of wolves against every odd._  
_That grew hungry and tired and needed to hunt._

 _They'd sneak in to the towns in the dead of the night._  
_And seek fire for comfort and warmth in the light._  
_And though they weren't evil, and knew it was wrong._  
_They couldn't escape, the lust for the blood._

Hansol touched the writing and, just as he expected, the world around him faded into a new one.

*

The same boy from the previous memory – Hansol had a suspicion that was the Hyungwon from the children’s book – left the pen aside. The book, just as the previous one, glowed a little brighter than the rest of the room, with the poem brighter still.

Then someone barged into the room.

The man was older, bigger – angry. He took Hyungwon by the collar and, without any warning, swung his fist at Hyungwon’s face.

“How dare you?” The man’s voice was a growl, barely audible through his clenched teeth. “How dare you be seen with this _scum_ . How dare you listen to their words, _how dare you_ \- I thought I raised you better, I thought you knew – you know what the people say, you know what they’ll do to us if they found out you are in contact with them. They probably have, already, and it’s your damn fault.”

“But father, they –” Hyungwon’s words were interrupted by another blow, and his next words got mixed with the tears falling down his face. “They aren’t that bad, father, listen to me, please maybe – maybe people are wrong, maybe him and his friends have –”

His voice got cut off again, because the next blow was to his throat.

Hansol could feel the ghost of pain in his own throat but more than that he could feel other things Hyungwon was feeling – like the dust that was choking him more than his father’s hands ever could, even in this closed room, like the feeling of the world pressing down on him, taking things away, choking him further. And most of all – desire to break free.

“Out.” His father hissed. “I never want to see you in this house again.”

*

The waking in the present was far more violent this time. Hansol found himself short of breath, much like Hyungwon had been in the memory. Minghao was next to him, shaking him, his expression one of worry.

“What happened?” He asked, frantic, “I was doing my thing and then you were just – shaking, and – you were crying, what the fuck happened?”

“It…” Hansol tried to think of a way to describe what happened, but came up blank. “It wasn’t a good memory.”

Minghao smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “A sob story, then? A love sob story.”

Hansol wanted to laugh, and he probably would have, if he hadn’t just experienced _that_. “I guess you could say that.” Hansol sighed. “Did you find something?”

“Kinda.” Minghao sat next to him, flipping through a stack of printed paper. “I found a Hyungwon that might be your Hyungwon, he was alive around the time of the riots, but all traces of him disappear right before they start. Apparently his father was some kind of government official in Aeon city.”

Aeon city. The city of dust.

 _Out,_ the man from the memory hissed in Hansol’s brain. “Yeah. I think that’s him.”

*

Turned out, the next book itself wasn’t the trigger item, either. There was a pressed flower inside – or at least what would’ve been a pressed flower, all those years ago. Hansol touched the pages and the memory enveloped him like a blanket.

*

“Where are you taking me?” Hyungwon’s voice asked. There was the other boy again – the one from the street in the first memory. Hansol tried to figure out when was this memory taking place – Hyungwon looked too happy, felt too content for it to be after the scene with his father.

“Just follow me,” the boy said and took Hyungwon’s hand. He led him through the dusty streets until they were almost out of the city. They reached a greenhouse that would seem completely abandoned, if it wasn’t for the soft light coming from inside.

“Minhyuk, what –”

They reached the greenhouse, and a smell of something – of something strong and sweet, hit them. It was warm inside, almost unbearably so and for a moment Hansol cursed the fact that he could feel the things people in the memories did.

There were more boys inside, gathered around a fire, and at the sight of Hyungwon and Minhyuk one of them surged up, grabbing a cup on his way, and proceeded to dab his fingers in it, then draw bright yellow lines across both Minhyuk and Hyungwon’s faces.

“Welcome! Finally, we thought you’d never show up.”

“I –”

“Shh,” Minhyuk interrupted and – and placed a kiss on Hyungwon’s lips. Hyungwon looked just as surprised as Hansol felt, even if the love part of this entire thing had been obvious right from the start.

“Come on,” one of the other boys around the fire beckoned them closer. “We almost started without you.”

“Is this what the infamous Clan does when they’re not manifesting around the city? Getting high?” Hyungwon said, voice stern, but he was smiling.

Some of the others laughed. The man who painted their faces smiled at Hyungwon. “We can’t always be the fearless fighters, you know.”

Soon the intoxication caught up with Hansol, too. The colors were everywhere and it was so _beautiful_. And so unlike all the dust and gray outside, in the city.

Hyungwon leaned into Minhyuk, and it was only the fact that this was Hyungwon’s memory, which allowed Hansol to hear his next words.

“Is this what freedom feels like?”

Minhyuk kissed his forehead, whispered “I don’t know what freedom feels like. But I imagine it might be similar to love, and if it is, then yeah. This – you are what freedom feels like.” Minhyuk picked a flower – a blue one – from the ones that grew around them, and pressed it into Hyungwon’s chest. “Whatever happens, keep this. Remember this. Remember us.”

“I think,” Hyungwon said, cradling the flower close to him, “I think I’m ready to have my initiation.”

Minhyuk’s answer was another kiss, softer and a lot longer than the first one.

*

“Look up the name Minhyuk. And something called _Clan,_ ” were Hansol’s first words back in the present. Minghao was still in the same place, still with his stack of printed paper.

“Clan? _The_ Clan? Did you not pay attention in any history lesson ever?” Minghao demanded, setting aside his paper. “They were the Aeon city branch of the Resistance during the Fallout era. I don’t think we’ve learned anything about a Minhyuk, though. Gimme a sec.”

Minghao disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with a laptop.

“Okay… Minhyuk, Aeon city, Fallout era… Okay, I think I found him.” he turned the screen to Hansol. There was a blurry, scanned photo of someone – someone who was definitely Minhyuk from the memory, only this Minhyuk lacked the smiles Hansol got used to seeing through Hyungwon’s eyes. This Minhyuk lacked any expression, really.

“This is him, but he looks so… different.”

Minghao shrugged. “Well, it is an old photo. It says here he had some connections to the Resistance in its early stages, but nothing specific. He was related to some arson incident, but there’s nothing specific about that, either.” Minghao looked thoughtfully at the screen for a second, then his eyes lit up. “Wait, I think I saw something earlier – here, yes. Hyungwon’s father apparently died in a fire that broke out in his home. Do you think they’re related?”

Hansol didn’t even need to think about it. “I’m sure of it.”

“Isn’t it funny?” Minghao asked, scrolling through the webpage. “The way you put it, it seems like they were an important part of the Aeon city riots, but neither of their files suggest anything like that. In fact, it’s like they stopped existing after a certain point in time.”

“Can you feel something else? Here, or – somewhere. It feels important, somehow. I need to know.”

“There are things, yeah. I can feel the threads but – they are not as strong. I don’t know if they’ll help much. There’s only one as strong as –”

“Take me.” Hansol interrupted. “I’ll explain later, I promise, I’ll tell you the whole story. Just – just take me.”

*

The thing turned out to be a gun.

It was also located in the Museum of National History.

“You’re lucky it’s still open, I don’t think I love you enough to break into museums for you.” Minghao said as they were climbing the stairs to the entrance.

“Please,” Hansol grinned. “You would’ve found it exciting.”

Minghao shrugged, grinning back. They both knew it was true.

“There it is,” Minghao pointed at a display of weaponry typical for the Fallout era. “You should probably know, though. It is related to your story but it feels a little different than the books did.”

Hansol waved him off. “I don’t care.”

Luckily for them it wasn’t a glass display, so it was going to be easy for Hansol to just lean over the barriers and touch it. If they were even luckier, he wouldn’t trigger any alarms. Minghao was already on museum guard duty.

Hansol just needed to lean over the barrier a bit…

*

The dust on the streets was up in clouds, or was this smoke? Hansol immediately spotted the gun – it was in Minhyuk’s hands. As was Hyungwon’s body. His white uniform was covered in red – Hansol might have not paid much attention in history, but even he could recognize the Resistance uniforms.

“Take it, Hoseok, please – I need you to take it. I need you to survive, I need you to win. I need you to save this goddamn city because it shouldn’t, it _can’t_ end this way. He can’t have died for nothing. And when you do win, I need you to erase us.”

The other man – Hoseok, shook his head furiously. “I can’t, I can’t, _I can’t_. They have to know what you did, what you both did - without you we would’ve been nothing, Minhyuk, nothing - doomed, useless.”

Minhyuk smiled, but it had nothing to do with the smiles Hansol had seen in every other memory. “We were always doomed. But you will write tomorrow’s history – and history is written by the winners, Hoseok. I already lost everything.” He looked at Hyungwon in his arms and for a second, Hansol saw a glimpse of the Minhyuk in the greenhouse. “History remembers only the outlines – I can’t let him, I can’t let _us_ be a footnote in some textbook somewhere. You have to promise you’ll erase me – you’ll erase both of us. Promise me.”

Hoseok finally took the gun, still shaking his head. “I won’t forget you. None of us will.”

Minhyuk ran his hand through Hoseok’s hair. “I know you won’t. But the world needs to.”

*

Back in reality, the museum alarm was blaring and Minghao was trying to fight off the guard. When he saw Hansol was back, he pushed the guard away and made a beeline for the museum’s side entrance, as per their plan. Hansol took a moment, but the rapidly approaching guard’s yells broke him out of his trance, and he ran after Minghao.

Outside, far enough from the museum so they don’t have to worry about being chased anymore, both of them stopped to catch their breaths.

“Did it work?” Minghao asked, a mad grin on his face.

“Yeah,” Hansol said, but he couldn’t bring himself to return the smile. “Yeah, it did.”


End file.
